Word: mishaps
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
From Bali, where they stopped last week on their way to the Tokyo economic summit, Reagan Administration officials had conflicting reactions when news of the Soviet disaster reached them. On the one hand, the White House fears that the mishap could further damage the U.S. nuclear-power industry and even provide fresh ammunition to nuclear-disarmament advocates. On the other, the Reaganauts were eager to seize the opportunity offered by the Soviets' reluctance to disclose the accident and Moscow's refusal to give full details. Said Secretary of State George Shultz: "When an incident has cross-border implications, there...
...asked that an international team be allowed to visit the site. Danish Prime Minister Poul Schluter called the situation "intolerable and extremely worrying." In Poland, where officials said there could be a sharp increase in cancer rates in the next two to three decades as a result of the mishap, people were especially angry. Said one Warsaw resident: "We can understand an accident. It could happen to anyone. But that the Soviets said nothing and let our children suffer exposure to this cloud for days is unforgivable...
Although the Soviets kept virtually silent about the origins of last week's accident, Western experts in Moscow and elsewhere were gradually piecing together the probable sequence of events that led to disaster (see diagram). The trouble seems to have begun Saturday, April 26, when a mishap caused a loss of the water that continuously cools the uranium fuel rods in the reactor's core. With the coolant gone, superheated steam could have triggered ) a series of irreversible reactions leading to a meltdown of the fuel and a blast that ripped through the roof of the building that housed Unit...
...mishap comes at an awkward time for Britain, where planners are eager to build a new generation of nuclear plants. While Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher declared last week, "The record of our own nuclear-power industry is absolutely superb," Chernobyl could force long delays in approval of the utilities. Once the disaster became known, environmental groups quickly called for demonstrations...
March 28, 1979. In the biggest U.S. mishap, one of two reactors at Three Mile Island, near Harrisburg, Pa., lost its coolant because of equipment malfunctions and human error. The loss of coolant caused the radioactive fuel to overheat and led to a partial meltdown. Some radioactive material escaped, but a potentially major disaster was averted. Although no one is known to have died as a result of the accident, the hazard posed to local residents is still being debated...